Miniature Painting by Aella13

Throne of Everblight Conversion: The Tentacles

Original upload date: January 7 2014 – May 16 2015

I chose this tentacle as the base anchor for the portal as it has a small flat section that fits onto the platform the best. I started by sawing off the end of the tentacle. It widens to socket into the beast’s body but I wanted to lengthen and change the angle to have it emerging from the pool above. I then hollowed out the top section so that I could have an increased surface area to attach the new top half of the tentacle. I drilled out a deep pin hole to support the upper tentacle and platform. This time I used a hollow brass rod to minimise weight.

I want to assemble the model in three sub-assemblies to make it easier to paint, and that means I need this tentacle connection to remain separate until the painting is done. I made a plug of putty as my starting point for the upper tentacle. I liberally applied vaseline to the socket so that the putty plug will be a perfect fit, but not stick.

I decided to wrap a tentacle around the platform for cool factor. I started by forming the basic shape out of aluminium foil. I use al foil as an armature as it is lighter and cheaper than putty, but it is not load-bearing so I needed to pin the claw through the putty into the platform.

I then sculpted putty over the top of the foil, joining it up with the original claw.

I realised at this point how long this conversion was going to take me. I could only sculpt a couple of scales at a time (or risk smudging) and I had about a hundred to go! Ugh.

I started to thicken up the support tentacle and add scales. It was important to match up the thickness so that it blends together when it’s all joined up to the portal, but for now I wanted to keep the pieces separate so that I could paint underneath the portal more easily. It’s taking a long time because I keep messing it up the thickness and the scales.

The two side tentacles are done. I had to saw off the ends as they thickened to fit into the Throne’s sockets. I want to make it look like the body of the beast is much higher on the other side of the portal, so the thickness of the tentacles needed to be more uniform. For that reason I filled in some of the musculature at the top of the tentacle as well. Some of the tentacles had a flattened section to rest on the base, because mine will be in mid-air I needed to fill out those flattened sections.

Here’s the top half of the wrapping tentacle. I learned a lot from my mistakes with the first one so I got the shape completely done before I started the scales.

As opposed to this one, which I was very unhappy with. I lost count now of how many times I sliced greenstuff off and started again. It’s vertical so that it can support the weight of the structure but it just doesn’t look right.

So, after stripping it and resculpting several times I decided to start over and curled the putty around the brass rod. I think it’s an improvement but I wasted several months of sculpting those damn scales! That’s the new one on the left.

Here it is connected to the resin tentacle.

This conversion has taken me a very long time. I experienced delays when my putty never arrived. I tried a different putty and it turnout so badly that I had to rip it all off and start again. I also had to start the first tentacle from scratch. All together it took the fun out of the project and so I was dragging my heels on the conversion. (Don’t worry, it’s finally finished now!)